My family was gathered at a State Park for a barbecue one Sunday afternoon. We were cooking, sharing food, playing volleyball and baseball and swimming in the lake. It was a wonderful time of sharing and visiting with all of our family. It reminded me of the good ole days when we were just kids playing with all of our cousins.

A truck approached rapidly out of the woods into our picnic site and the men on the truck were holding automatic weapons. They were not a professional military, but a rough looking Gestapo type group that was rounding up people onto the backs of the trucks.

We were told to leave our things and come with them or they would shoot us. Our family members loaded onto the truck and we began our ride to this Pavilion at the State Park. We asked what was going on and why we were being rounded up like prisoners, but there were no answers. We were simply told to be quiet and do as we were told.

When we arrived at the Pavilion, we were herded off of the trucks and told to stand in line. I was looking around the line trying to see what we were walking toward and what was happening to the people. Someone said to me, “Oh, don’t worry, they are just putting us into a machine to keep us from getting the flu”. I thought that was strange and I didn’t get a witness to what we were being told.

As we slowly approached the machine (like a voting booth or an airport TSA machine that blows air on you from about 16 jets- remember this dream was 2002. No TSA machines like this yet) I could see that the people that were walking into the machine were walking out of the machine changed.

I observed more and more people walk into the machines, regular people and walk out of the machine appearing void of their spirit. It was as if the machine stole the spirit of the true and living God out of their being. The more I watched and the shorter the line became, the more I knew that I must not go through the machine. Yet I did not know how to avoid getting into the machine without getting shot on the spot by the guards ushering the people into the machine.

About the time that I was fast approaching the front of the line and next to get into the machine, there was a disturbance that distracted the guards and they stopped the line. When the disturbance was over, the confused guards went back to their post guarding the people and the machine. I was now standing on the other side of the machine appearing “void of spirit”, and walking like a zombie away from the machine. The guards thought that I had already gone through the machine so they did not call me back. They just picked up where they were in the line before the disturbance. They didn’t realize that I ran around the machine and pretended to be void of spirit without going into the machine.

It was truly the blessing and protection of the Almighty that preserved my spirit to continue to do His work during this critical time.

I watched how others walked and talked in this “new city”, we were living in to make sure that I continued to appear to be “void of spirit” too. I watched from a hilltop as children and adults were playing baseball on the community field. I wept as I watched the families that should have been laughing and cheering with joy at the excitement of the game, just play ball with no emotions. They went through the emotions of life, but they felt nothing. There were no emotions at all. People were totally controlled by something that happened to them in that machine. But who was controlling them and why? Who were these people and why would they want to destroy the very spirit of a person?

I kept very quiet and hidden from the Gestapo police that were monitoring the town. They would be able to tell that even though I was pretending to have no spirit that the spirit of the Holy One of Israel still lived within me. I knew that they were on to my deception and they were beginning to hunt me down to force me into the machine.

I knew that I had to get the Holy Cup (Chalice or Kiddush Cup) out of the chapel/Temple without being seen. I knew that they were coming to destroy all that God had given us to worship Him and that I had to protect and preserve this Cup so that they could be overthrown. I knew that the people had to have the Spirit of God within them or they would die. Time was running out and preserving this Cup of Yeshua was their only hope.
I broke into the Chapel that had been barred and locked and took the Cup and wrapped it up in my coat to hide it. I quickly ran as fast as I could to the seashore. I knew that I had to get to the water and to the Lighthouse. I knew that there would be shelter and safety from the enemy inside of the Lighthouse.

I walked into the door of the Lighthouse and it had been abandoned many years earlier. I could hear the footsteps of the enemy tracking me down. They were moving in closer and closer to where I was hiding. I could hear their voices and the one in charge issuing harsh orders to find me now.

I crawled into the space between the floors with the Cup hidden in my coat as I maneuvered up to the top of the Lighthouse. I knew that if I could just get to the top of the Lighthouse that I would be safe and the Cup would be safe too.

I knew that if there were any hope for the people to return to having the Spirit of God living within them, then I had to preserve the Cup. I knew if I was captured and the Cup was destroyed that we would all be lost. This cup would no longer be filled with the blood of our Messiah, our Redeemer, it would be filled with the blood of the Set Apart Believer's. As I hunkered down in a small attic space, I held the Cup of His Blood in my hands and I wept and prayed.

They were approaching rapidly and I could hear them just on the other side of the wall. They were ever so close, but they never touched me and they could not touch the Cup of His Blood.

I awoke suddenly from my dream and I was startled and trembling! I sat up in my bed and cried with all the emotions of having been hunted down for days and weeks, yet I also felt His love and protection from the enemy that was pursuing me.

October 30, 2006 (more than four years after the dream)

I was in Gulfport, Mississippi at the airport preparing to go on a business trip. I had been invited by Governor Haley Barber’s Chief of Staff to speak at a Workforce Development Conference on Grant Writing in the Corporate Sector.

I was late to leave for the flight due to last minute problems at work and I was hurrying to get through the security gate. I was standing in line waiting to put my bags on the belt going into the x-ray machine when a TSA agent moved the line over to a booth that shoots air out of 16 blowers. You step inside of the booth and it sniffs your clothes and body for explosives.
When I saw what kind of booth was ahead of me that I was suppose to walk through, I had a flashback to my 2002 dream. I had every emotion of panic and fear that I felt when I was standing in line in my dream. I thought to myself how will I get around this machine? I was almost paralyzed with fear.

About that time, a large tall lady in a TSA uniform walked from around the machine and over to the line of people waiting to go through the machine. We were all behind the cattle line that herded us in that direction. There was total silence while the lady (guard) looked over the people standing in the line. From the look of authority on her face, it was obvious that she was looking for someone in that line.

As her eyes looked over the crowd, she came and stood in front of me. She lifted the cattle line and said to me, “Come with me”. I was stunned and shocked and wondered why I was being pulled out of line. It was as if the other guards didn’t even see her pulling me out of line.

She escorted me around not through the machine and past the conveyor belt of the baggage x-ray machine. She stood in front of me and with a small smile, she said, “You may go directly to your gate for boarding”. I had not gone through any of the x-ray machines. I looked at her again in shock and I was speechless. I managed to snap out of my trance and say to her, “Thank you as I walked off”. She just smiled as I walked away, when I looked back she seem to suddenly disappear.
I immediately called my son and told them about what had just happened to me at the airport. He remembers me telling him about the vivid dream that I had four years earlier concerning the machine that stole the Spirit of God from you. We were both speechless at the awesomeness of the God that we serve!

I know that Yeshua wants to give me these reminders that even though these things are coming and I will experience them, that, “I Will Be Fine”. HE will be my refuge in the Days of Trouble that lie ahead.